RED II comes under attack

The Impact Assessment Institute (IAI) has raised serious questions about the ways the European Commission reached its proposed Renewable Energy Directive revision (dubbed RED II).

Suggested changes to the Directive under RED II would see a gradual phase out of crop-based biofuels such as ethanol from the European fuel mix. The legislation has proven deeply unpopular in the biofuels industry, which argues such fuels are vital for helping the European Union meet its emissions targets.

Set up in 2015, IAI is an independent body tasked with scrutinising the evidence base for proposed and active legislation. According to the Institute’s website, it aims to provide impartial scientific and factual analysis on policy and legislative proposals, secondary legislation, amendments, active regulations, evaluations and other relevant policy studies.

The study related to RED II focused on its impact assessment of the sustainability of bioenergy, and “on the coherence between the impact assessments and the legislative proposal.”

Authored by Erik Akse, Fiona Dubernet, Simon Godwin and Julie Lenoir, the study “…identifies a number of significant shortcomings in the transparency of evidence, the underlying assumptions and the technical analysis. It also finds that the legislative proposal includes provisions not fully supported by evidence and in some cases inconsistent with the impact assessments without full explanation of the reasoning.”

Unsurprisingly, the biofuels industry has reacted strongly to the IAI report. Emmanuel Desplechin, secretary general of ePURE, the European renewable ethanol association, says in a statement: “This new study confirms that in proposing a phase-out of crop-based biofuels, the European Commission ignored its own scientific evidence showing that biofuels like renewable ethanol are produced sustainably in Europe and deliver high greenhouse-gas savings – and ignored its mandate to promote such sustainable biofuels. The report raises “serious concerns identified with analysis and/or evidence" on all aspects of the proposed RED II Directive. That should be a red flag to MEPs and Member States as they consider the legislation.

“Perhaps most troubling, according to the report, is that the Commission offers no supporting analysis for capping what it calls ‘food-based’ biofuels and does not differentiate among biofuels based on their greenhouse-gas savings.

“EU leadership on climate change is more important than ever, but it is far from a leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport. Renewable ethanol delivers more than 66% GHG reductions on average and works in today’s infrastructure and vehicle fleet. Now is not the time to turn back.”